Can anyone explain the essence of the "One True Lookup Table" design pattern?

Question

SQL

Something didn't google in Russian

Answer 1

It's not a pattern, it's an anti-pattern. It lies in the fact that beginners often use one universal table to store entities of different types.
Idea: instead of using three lookup tables

create table order_status (status_code varchar2(10), status_desc varchar2(40) );
create table country (country_code varchar2(3), country_name varchar2(30) );
create table priority (priority_no number(1), priority_desc varchar2(40) );

Why not use one table like

create table lookup (
lookup_type varchar2(10), 
lookup_code varchar2(20), 
lookup_desc varchar2(100) );

Details here tonyandrews.blogspot.cz/2004/10/otlt-and-eav-two-b...
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